The Honeymoon, page 22
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Annie?” he asked in a commanding, manly voice. “I’m coming in, all right?”
“Yes,” she said very casually.
I walked in behind Gerhardt. The room was brightly lit, but the walls were red, the unifying theme of the restaurant. Annie was running her hand under the cold water.
“Let me have a look at that,” said Gerhardt.
She dutifully lifted her hand. It looked unnaturally white from the cold water and it shook slightly. There were four little holes between the tendons of her middle and index fingers. She did not look at me.
“This doesn’t look so bad,” said Gerhardt in a jolly voice. He became very grave and lifted the glass of brandy. “This will hurt,” he said.
Annie nodded and looked away. He poured the glass of brandy over her hand and I saw her face flinch in the mirror. He patted her hand dry with paper towel before tying the napkin tightly around her hand. It seemed he had done this before, perhaps in the Swiss Boy Scouts. Annie lifted her hand and looked at it and then looked at its reflection. She looked like a featherweight boxer preparing for a fight.
“Thank you,” she said.
“No trouble,” smiled Gerhardt. “I don’t think she intended to hurt you, Annie,” he said. “I think it was a mistake.”
“Would you two mind excusing me?” she asked. “I now need to use the toilet.”
“Of course,” said Gerhardt. “Gordon . . . .” He put his hand on my shoulder and guided me from the room.
Outside he said, “why don’t you wait here and I‘ll take Maureen and June back to the hotel. I think what we need is a few hours for everyone to calm down.” I was amazed how sober he was in a crisis. I waited. Finally, the toilet flushed and the taps ran and then she stepped from the door.
“I’m ready to go,” she said.
We walked through the restaurant together. Everyone turned to look at us. She held her hand in front of her as if it was a torch on fire and at the sight of it people began to whisper. We walked home almost in silence. I said only one thing as we crossed over a little footbridge where happy couples were climbing into their rented gondolas. “I’m sorry,” I said. And then, “I think Gerhardt’s right. I don’t think she meant it really.”
“Your mother stabbed me in the hand with a fork.” Her calm was frightening.
“I think she didn’t mean to do it that hard. She just meant to touch you.”
“Well she didn’t seem very apologetic.”
“She can’t, she’s like a child in that way. What are you going to do?” I asked.
She turned and looked at me with what I now realize was disgust. “Do?” she asked. “I haven’t decided. Perhaps I’ll have her arrested.”
As we passed through the hotel lobby, Annie held her hand in the same obvious manner she had in the restaurant and people looked at her and commented. In the room she sat down in a chair by the window and put a cigarette in her mouth. “Can you light it for me, please?” she asked, indicating her hand. I lit it and sat down on the bed. I was suddenly incredibly exhausted by the whole episode. A strange, sickly exhaustion, as if my health would be in danger if I did not lie flat on my back. I closed my eyes and quite unwillingly drifted off to sleep.
I slept deeply, but when I awoke, it was with a start. I was instantly sorry I had fallen asleep. It was early. I had the feeling that there were very few people awake in the world. Annie was sitting in the same chair, but she had not been there all night. I could tell from what she wore, from her hair, mussed at the back of her head, and from the rumpled outline in the sheets beside me. She sat looking out the open window, doused in a thin layer of early morning light. She had been crying. Her make-up had run and her face was swollen.
“Come lie down,” I said.
“There’s a flight at eleven. I’ve booked myself on it. That means taking a boat at eight-thirty or so. I went downstairs and did it after you were asleep. You can come if you like, there’s room, or else you can stay here.”
“Of course I’ll come.”
“There’s something very wrong with you and Maureen,” she said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said, “but I had no idea it went this deep.”
“What went this deep?”
“Your affections for one another.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“I won’t compete with her.” She shook her head hopelessly. “I don’t think I can. You should just stay.”
I got out of bed and began to pack. I had not even removed my shoes before I’d fallen asleep. It was an odd sensation. “Let’s just go,” I said. I stopped when my bag was half full and walked over to her. I put my hands on either armrest so that I had her trapped within the chair. “Let’s just go home,” I said. “We won’t have anything more to do with her.” She looked up at me as if she did not believe me, but before she could speak, I said, “Nothing. Do you hear?”
Part Three
Twenty Two
In the darkness of the heath, we were man and wife again. The dog wandered between us, twisting her head back and forth be tween loyalties. Annie looked unhappy. Her hands and feet were cold. “You can have a nice warm bath when you get home,” I told her.
“Read a prayer at Maureen’s funeral,” she said. “Even if she didn’t believe in it.” When we returned to the top of the hill we saw the whole grey city and its flashing lights. We stood side by side and looked down. The empty bathing lake with nothing to reflect was a pure and oily black.
“I’m not going to the Algarve with my father,” she said.
“No?” I asked.
“No . . . I’m going with Heathcliff.”
“Heathcliff?”
She shook her head. “Graham . . . You remember him. I’m going back to him. He’s been around these last few weeks . . . We were in love, Gordy, and what we’ve realized is that we still are.” She wouldn’t look at me. “I didn’t want to say anything. All afternoon I’ve been thinking I shouldn’t say anything, not now, but no one likes a liar. I’m sorry about Maureen, but I thought lying would be . . . Well it wouldn’t be any help as hard as it is to tell you.” She glanced around either for the dog, or to check if there was anyone near by.
“But I never went to see her,” I said. It was her turn to look confused.
“What are you talking about?” she asked. “I never asked you not to see her.”
I stared at her silently. She reached out and touched the upper part of my arm. She squeezed it gently as if she were checking that there was really something in the sleeve.
“Don’t pretend this is such a surprise,” she said. “Come on, Gordy. We didn’t last very long. It’s not the end of the world. There was something not right and we found that out pretty quickly,” she turned her head to an angle and smiled. “It’s better this way, that we found out now,” she continued. “I don’t think you can make decisions the way we did.”
“Have a lovely time. Get some sun and things. I wish you luck . . . .” As I spoke, I moved backwards away from her. I had to stop, as I felt the hill falling away behind me and I had the sudden sensation I would fall and roll down backwards into the bathing pond.
“Gordon,” she said pleadingly. She stepped forward.
“Please don’t come any closer,” I said. I held out my hands to keep her away.
“Well, come and sit down, for God’s sake,” she said, still coming towards me.
“How could you?” was all I could muster. She stood back, looking at me with horror. This is not, usually, the way I behave. I am ashamed to admit that I said it at all, but once it was out, I could not reclaim it. “I wish you the best of luck.” I nodded finally and turned away. If someone had been watching from across the park, they might have thought I had finally convinced this persistent stranger she had the wrong person.
“How could I?” I heard her say as I walked away. After a moment, she called after me, but she didn’t follow. I walked straight down the hill. The grass looked blue in the darkness—a quiet sea for me to cross.
She didn’t call after me again. She stood still and watched me go and resisted shouting my name. She resisted the selfish temptation to try to make herself feel better by calling me back. I suppose I am grateful for that.
I had walked for several minutes before I finally turned and looked back in the direction I had come. There was no sign of her. The top of the hill was empty. My feet were wet again. They made a squelching sound with each step. I had not decided on the direction that I would go when I went. I headed for some trees and when I got there realized I did not recognize where I was. I found myself in an unfamiliar part of the heath. It used to be what I liked most about the heath; one does not have to be a stranger to get pleasantly, temporarily lost. But at that moment, I took no pleasure in being lost. I turned several times in a circle looking for a bearing and then decided there was nothing to do but go back the way I came.
Twenty Three
Theo arrived on the Cape the day before yesterday. We met for dinner the night he arrived. He is staying in one of the larger hotels, one of the few that has not yet closed for the season. The windows have been winterized, the canopies have been taken in, leaving the cement patio and steel canopy poles exposed to the wind. He’s not very fond of it, but has not, as far as I know, eaten anywhere else since he got here.
From across the dining room, Theo looked worried as he sipped from his martini, the twist of lemon bobbing face down. There was a time when I wanted to be just like Theo. And then, there came a time when I hated the idea. As I watched him dip his little finger into the drink, and then into his mouth, I merely admired the fact that he had survived relatively unscathed.
As I came across the room, he looked up at me. He wiped the sad expression from his face with his napkin and stood, his hand extended. A long time seemed to pass as I slipped across the luxurious carpet before I surrendered my hand into his.
“Hey, there, Gordy,” he said. “How are you?”
“I’m all right.” We shook hands for a moment longer, looking sincerely at one another. “Let’s sit, “I said finally. He released my hand and fell ungracefully back into his booth.
“What can we get you to drink?” he asked. He waved over a waiter and ordered me a martini. He waited until it arrived and then we raised our glasses. “To your poor Mother,” he said with finality.
“Yes,” I said.
“A wonderful woman. She was troubled, but that doesn’t take anything away from her. I was crazy about her.”
“That’s what Annie said.”
“What’s that?”
“That you were always crazy about Maureen . . . Annie said you were always in love with her. That’s why you bought her the house.”
Theo frowned. “There are things a man has to do despite the failure of a marriage. She had run out of money . . . It doesn’t mean I was in love with her.” He frowned with more emphasis.
“I didn’t say it . . . Annie did.”
Theo shrugged and took a large sip of his martini. He held the long cardboard menu at arm’s length and gazed down his nose through the top part of his bifocals. I am sure he already knew what he wanted, but he scrutinized every item. Perhaps he wanted a moment of silence. As he held the menu, he extended it a little too closely over the flame of the candle, and it slowly began to blacken. I watched smoke curl up the backside of the menu, leaving a blue-black stain along the white, and thought for a thrilling moment that it might go up in flames. Just in time, he retrieved the menu, never knowing how close he came to setting it alight, and rested it on the table in front of him.
After the waiter took our order, and disappeared with the singed menu, I contemplated the black stain on the white tablecloth with the end of my finger.
“Annie has left me,” I told him.
He nodded, as if to suggest it was something he always knew would happen. “Do you think it’s for good?”
“I do.”
“She’s never coming back?” he said into his glass.
“No.”
He has never told me that I made a mistake. Maureen thought that I made a mistake with Annie. Theo never took me aside and asked, don’t you remember? Never marry young. And we were very young. Perhaps he does not remember giving me that advice. Never marry again, Theo. I might return the favor.
“Gordon,” he said. “You’ll be all right. Look at me. I’ve lived through it more than once . . . I want you to know that you can come to Florida any time you want. You can come and stay. I think we should see more of one another. It’s very sad about your Mother, and now that we’re both unmarried men . . .”
After dinner we walked from the restaurant into the lobby. Theo put his arm around my shoulder and walked me towards the exit. “You sure you’re all right staying at your mother’s,” he asked.
“I’m fine,” I said.
Music came from a party in one of the ballrooms. The sound was muffled and then a door opened and the inviting music poured out of the room, interrupting the ringing phones and politely modulated conversation at the concierge’s desk. Theo guided us towards the open door and we looked in. A group of people crowded around the door, shaking hands. A party was coming to its end. Behind the good-byes, couples were still dancing. The men wore dark suits, the women heavy winter dresses. An older couple danced in the middle of the room. They had been drinking; their skin glowed from the alcohol. They were still in love, still sexually appealing to one another. But it was easier after drinking. They danced slowly. He whispered in her ear and made her laugh.
“Look at that,” said Theo. He shook his head sadly. “It’s a wedding,” he said.
“How do you know?”
“They invited all the guests who are staying at the hotel. There’s only three of us.”
“That was kind of them.”
“You mustn’t give up,” he said.
“Give up what?” I asked.
“Trying to be happy,” he said.
I don’t think that I had ever consciously tried to be happy. I had always presumed that I was, but perhaps I wasn’t.
“Your mother never gave up.”
Twenty Four
I don’t think I have clearly explained what happened to Maureen. She did not react well to our leaving Venice. Perhaps, left be hind with June and Gerhardt, she realized what she had done: the purgatory to which she had relegated herself. To what I imagine would have been his great relief, she released Gerhardt from the engagement. She did not call me. I sometimes wonder what might have been different if she had—if she had called and begged forgiveness. She called Theo. She confessed everything to him as if he were a parent who could magically improve everything. She said she had committed a crime, a violent crime, and his solution was to buy her this house where I have spent the past week. She agreed to end her travels and stay in one place. She might have changed her mind once she arrived, but by then, it was too late. She had made an agreement with Theo.
This morning was the funeral. Theo and I decided on a plot in the graveyard near the sea. Unfortunately, it was very close to the neighboring golf course. As we pulled the coffin from the hearse, there was a group of golfers looking for a ball in the rough beside the fence. They kindly removed their hats in a gesture of respect before playing through.
I assumed it was just going to be Theo and me until a small white taxi trundled up the dirt road. For a moment, I thought I was going to meet whatever friend Maureen had made in her months of exile, but when the door opened, June Reynolds got out.
She struggled up the yellow hill with her skirt in one hand; the other hand out-stretched to balance herself. When she arrived she seemed very happy to see me. She gave me a kiss on my cheek. I introduced her to Theo. She told him she had heard a lot about him. I wondered from whom. She said that she was in Boston visiting her daughters and read the announcement in the paper. The announcement had been Theo’s idea. “I was in quite regular touch with her,” she said. “I used her book, as she worked on it, as a guide and was able to be of some assistance in confirming factual information when she needed it. I was her eyes and ears on the ground when she needed them. Of course, she didn’t . . . Well, rarely, anyway. She has a mind like a steel trap, doesn’t she?”
Theo and I nodded.
Our party walked towards the open grave. “Gerhardt’s distraught,” June whispered to me. “We’ve seen something of one another since she broke off the engagement. I’ve stayed with him in Vienna. He’s really devastated . . . I don’t think there was anyone she could really tolerate as a companion . . . Well, except you.” She patted me on the shoulder.
“Are you two getting married?” I asked.
“Oh . . . Well,” said June with her hand on her chest. She looked so much better than when I’d last seen her, I could think of no other explanation. “We haven’t gotten that far, Gordy.” She looked at the ground and her spine seemed to shrink by at least one vertebra.
“I wish you happiness,” I said.
“Thank you Gordon,” she looked up at me with wind-tears in her eyes.
The priest was standing by politely, waiting for June to be quiet. I had taken Annie’s advice and decided on a few prayers. I don’t think Maureen would have minded. The priest began to read. I had chosen the passages from a bible Maureen had on her shelf amongst her art books in her reference section. The St. James’ had belonged to her mother and had my grandmother’s maiden name written in the cover. The passages I chose were underlined and Maureen’s notes filled the margins for reasons (having read her book) I can’t tell. I could not concentrate on what the priest was saying. Instead, I thought of the final pages of Maureen’s book and realized I had decided wrongly. I should have had the priest read from those pages instead. The effect would have been far less depressing. To hear her words in someone else’s voice would have done me good. Her voice lives in my mind. Her impression of what is beautiful and what is not, what will last and what will be forgotten, floating above the grass, the chop of the golf game and then over the waves into the sea, would have made her happy. Perhaps I will print up a small selection of these pages and send it to everyone we’ve known as a Christmas card. Christmas is a few weeks away. It could be waiting for Annie and Heathcliff in the pile of mail behind their door when they return from Portugal:
